Hey chiropractors, we're ready for another Modern Chiropractic Marketing Show with Dr. Kevin Christie where we discuss the latest in marketing strategies, contact marketing, direct response marketing and business development with some of the leading experts in the industry.
Kevin: All right, this is your host, Dr. Kevin Christie. Today I've got another episode of the modern chiropractor marketing show, and I'm interviewing someone that I've been really excited to do this. I've been wanting to interview him for quite a while. This is Dr. Mike of MoveU. You may have seen his Instagram or even Facebook but essentially the videos that are super entertaining. He has got his colleague there, Andrew, with him, whose always got the shirt off and doing goofy stuff, but they've really, just honestly taken the medium of video and dominated, and then the vehicle of, say Instagram, and really done well on that. You may see them on Facebook and YouTube where they've excelled, and where they've got 1.2 million follows now on Instagram, and so we dive into that, but really why I wanted to have them on here is because they've hit a lot of the key points that I've been trying to convey to chiropractors over the last few years, and that is essentially they have a really strong content marketing strategy that utilizes video as the mode of getting that content out there. [0:01:24.6]
Some people do audio, like this podcast is audio content using audio, and then they've just leveraged the Instagram technology so well to get it out there, but then they've made their content educational, creative, fun… It's just something that has captured the attention of a lot of people. They built the audience first, then they monetized it. So they create a content, build up the audience, then they monetize it to the point where, as you'll see, Dr. Mike had sold his practice a few years back and they're really focusing on the online platforms and academies that they have, so you're going to learn a lot. He brings the entertainment, even on this show. It's just a good time. He definitely has the energy to excel on video, and we talk about that a little bit too. I think you're going to enjoy this episode. I know I did. It was a really entertaining interview, one of the most entertaining I've had, as you'll see. [0:02:20.6]
Before we dive into that, I want to discuss a couple things coming up. One is we have the CSA Palm Beach Retreat. Back in June, we had the Portland one. It went really well. This time we're doing it in December in Palm Beach, South Florida, sunny. It will probably be 70 degrees, 75 degrees, and a lot of you are coming from the snowy, colder parts of the country or Canada, and so I want you to come down here. We've got Dr. Jeff Langmaid. We got Jon Morrison. We got Dr. Bobby Maybee, myself. We're going to have presentations, the four of us, but then we're also going to dive into small groups. We're going to have fun. We're going to go to the pinball museum, which is actually this huge arcade in Delray Beach, Florida that has all the old pinball games, Skee Ball, arcades like Mortal Combat, Pac-Man… Everything you can image. [0:03:10.2]
We're renting out a room. They play rock and roll music. It's a good time, food, drinks, and having a fun time with your colleagues, your friends, and even some of your family members. I know some have already registered and are bringing their significant others. So hopefully you'll consider that as well. Check that out. It is Delay Beach. It's in Palm Beach County, so it's the Palm Beach Retreat, and you can go to www.bit.ly/csapalmbeachretreat, and you can register now. We've got Early Bird Discount until 11/01/2019. We've got student rates, and we've got CSA member rates also, so if you're not a CSA member, I recommend that, and you'll get a discount, and check that out.
All right, so next is we're also doing a virtual summit coming up, and that's going to be 10/24/2019. It's a one-day summit. I've done two of these summits in the past. They've been multiple days. That is going to be a nice, quick one-day summit that I'm collaborating with Motion Palpation Institute, so it's the MPI Virtual Summit. We've got two tracks. [0:04:11.5]
One is going to be clinical, and the other one is going to be marketing and business. We've got three presentations under the clinical and we've got three under the business and marketing. It's going to be free for you. You've just got to register, and that day, you can watch it on your laptop, on your phone, on your iPad, whatever you want to watch it, but it's virtual so you don't have to be anywhere other than your office or your home, and you can check that at out at www.bit.ly/mpivirtualsummit, register now, and you'll get the email the day of to remind you of it, and you'll be able to watch some amazing presentations from the likes of Dr. Mark King, Corey Campbell, and we've got Brett Winchester, myself, and we're going to try to bring really good
information for you, so check that out.
All right, without further ado, here's my interview with Dr. Mike from MoveU:
Welcome to the show! I've got Dr. Mike from MoveU on the line today. I'm really excited to interview him because I think they're doing one of the best jobs of content marketing that I've seen, and then they're leveraging platforms such as Instagram and Facebook and others to get that out there, and it's a creative content and it's extremely informative, so before we dive into that, Doc, tell us a little bit about yourself, both personally and professionally. [0:05:25.6]
Dr. Mike: All right! Dr. Kevin, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. I really do appreciate… I think we got connected through… I went up and spoke at… I'm drawing a blank right now!
Kevin: I think you were out in Cali, right?
Dr. Mike: Yeah, the chiro college there… What's going on with me?
Kevin: [laughter] There's like five of them!
Dr. Mike: Is there? Just up north a little bit, in L.A.
Kevin: Ah, was it Life?
Dr. Mike: Oh, shit… I forget. It'll pop into my mind. But, yeah, I got connected to you from speaking there because I'm just so passionate about helping the younger generation, or at least a generation that is seeking to move into chiropractic work or early chiropractor or chiropractors that are seeking to get to the next level themselves because I know I had so many struggles myself, frustrations, and I just felt you were trained… Like when I graduated, I felt like I was trained to practice in 1984, [laughter]…[ 0:06:17.2]
Kevin: Yeah, yup, yup.
Dr. Mike: So, yeah, that's where… That's why I'm happy to be on your podcast. But a little background is I'm Pre-Med minor and degree in psychology from Kent State University in Ohio. I started working in chiropractic near 2000. I opened a rehab branch on a family clinic in the year 2000. I was blasting x-rays at people, and I was 19 years old, just blasting them through, standing in their just covering my freakin' junk with my hands, hoping that's as a good as lead. There was some early-on mistakes there. [laughter]
Kevin: [laughter]
Dr. Mike: Hopefully everything's all right… [laughter]… I know I'm not!
Kevin: [laughter]
Dr. Mike: But, yes, I stayed in for like 6 years, when I was 18 to 24 or 23, just working in the same chiro clinic, sports injury rehab, family chiro, went to chiro school in Palmer, Iowa, and, to be honest with you, never… I always loved the philosophy the body heals itself, it's a self-healing organism, and everything builds around that. [0:07:21.4] I think it's beautiful and inspiring and empowering, and the adjustment, itself, the adjustment at the primary mechanism, I never connected with it to that level. I didn't. So I sought out… I've always been interested in sports injury and movement, and that's what I started getting into in 2007/2008, SFMA and FMS with Gray Cook and Jenna Gourlay and TPI and ART and Graston and K-tape… Anything resulting in movement base, tissue work, and so that brought me to California and to San Diego. I just took it on a whim, just graduated… Two weeks before graduation, I had no idea what I was going to do with my life, just grabbed something out here in Cali, just drove out here, in a U-Haul… [laughter] [0:08:07.8]
Kevin: [laughter]
Dr. Mike: … in a Motel 6 for like a week until I found a place. Someone broke in there, stole all my shit… Aw, classic… I had like $2000… Yeah, it was pretty awesome… You know, it always works out with you, it really does. You can… If you're determined to, you'll find out a way, especially as a dude. I like being pushed into a corner and having to make shit happen. So, I started to build a practice out here in 2009, was an independent contractor… Started as like an employee and moved to independent contractor inside of a health sports club, and health sports club, and finally in 2014, I decided… 2012, sorry… I was like, I'm going to start my own thing, I'm start a clinic, my own, and it was called CaliSpine, like California Spine. It was…
Kevin: I remember that!
Dr. Mike: You do?
Kevin: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Mike: It's still going. My buddy… I actually turned it over to Dr. Josh Harper. He does a lot of neuro work. [0:09:02.9]
Kevin: Okay.
Dr. Mike: Which is amazing, and there is a bright future for chiro neurology. He took it over. He still runs it today. We're friends. I really support him. Prior to that though, I was… I just… You know… I was never really built for just being in the clinic. It's like, I felt like I'm just being trapped… I've always been, felt, stuck in a 9 to 5. I couldn't go explore the world. I couldn't invest in my spear fishing trips, and I honestly never made the money in the clinic. I just couldn't get the clinic model off the ground, and I was beating myself up over it, and I was watching all my friends succeed. Like, some of my friends were crushing, and I felt like I was flat lined. So I was frustrated, turning to hobbies, and turning to… Trying to start other businesses. I started like 8 businesses – gun parts, online dating…
Kevin: [laughter]
Dr. Mike: … beef jerky business – we ate all the profits! [laughter]
Kevin: [laughter]
Dr. Mike: That shit was outside of chiro and outside of what I do, but it wasn't actually. It was taking what I knew and applying it differently, applying it on a different platform, and I'll get into that, but in 2013, I had an opportunity to be an instructor at California State University, Cal State, and as a chiropractor, I was invited to teach a course to pre-physical therapy students, but I was related with PTs. [0:10:27.2]
I related with them. They were… I related more with PTs than I did with chiros. I always have. And so I taught a course I designed called Intro to Manual Therapy Techniques, and that's where I met Andrew. He is the shirtless dude in our videos.
Kevin: [laughter] I was going to ask what his name was! [laughter]
Dr. Mike: [laughter] That's Andrew! Also known as the shirtless guy!
Kevin: [laughter] Yeah, yup!
Dr. Mike: He was one of my first students, and then he was a teacher's assistant of mine. I actually had about six teacher's assistants. I remember one time the dean called me in the office and was like, Michael, every instructor here has one teacher's assistant. Why do you have 7? [laughter]
Kevin: [laughter]
Dr. Mike: "I have to run a 5-star class, Dr. Witzke!" [laughter]
Kevin: [laughter] That's awesome!
Dr. Mike: He ended up becoming the first intern and an employee, and as soon as he became an employee, he was the first employee of CaliSpine. [0:11:12.1]
Kevin: Okay.
Dr. Mike: He was like my right-hand man with that, and then we grew CaliSpine for a couple years, and then it started to sink down a little bit because I wasn't very passionate about it. In 2015, we started making Instagram videos, and prior to that, from 2009 to 2015, I made 20, 30 videos on YouTube. Some of them had a few hundred thousand views. I just never knew… I remember the videos, people would always say, how can I learn this? I'm like, you have to come to my office! I was mad. I used to think, I used to believe, that people had to come to my office and see me, which is a huge restriction of… That's a huge limitation of the mind if the mission is to help as many people as possible. It's a limiter. So, yeah, 2015, we started… We just started… We did some chiropractic continuing educations, I had to do it, and Andrew came… I'm like, you're coming with! [laughter] [0:12:04.8]
Kevin: [laughter]
Dr. Mike: And took a course on Instagram videos, and Andrew's a robot, he's a machine. He's… I'm not very consistent. He's consistent, reliable. He's a machine. And we just started making videos, five videos a week for almost five years now, all weeks, like never missed, and we just naturally grew that damn thing. We grew Instagram from zero to over a million today.
Kevin: Yeah, I saw that.
Dr. Mike: Yeah, all natural, all organic, just growth, and we never even asked people to tag us. We just kept doing our best and… I just learned that on video, Andrew and I have a unique personality on video, and my true personality comes out on video, and we just kept making them and making them, and I can get in more details in that if you have any more questions?
Kevin: Yeah, we're going to dive into that, because one of the questions out of the gate, was I did a podcast recently where I get a lot of chiropractors I've talked to and coach on marketing, and there's always this concern they have of, I don't have an audience, why should I create? Why should I do content? It sounds like you didn't have an audience at one point, but you guys started creating, and it was consistent, and then the audience followed? Is that correct? [0:13:12.7]
Dr. Mike: Yes. There was no audience. We had zero audience. I was a standard brick and mortar chiro, relying off of referrals, pretty much referrals only, Yelp, Google reviews, word of mouth, going to different sports events whether it's setting up a golf demo day or setting up at a CrossFit camp. That's how I was getting everybody, and we started just creating videos, and in that, over the course of time, the… I've always thought to make it a little bit better, make it a little more interesting. I'd watch every video I did. I'd watch my facial expressions, what worked… Study what worked, kind of ignored what didn't, and tried just new, interesting ways. [0:14:02.7]
At the time we started, Instagram videos were only 15 seconds. So that's how we built that thing. And it built and built, and it wasn't until we hit 180,000 people when I was like, hey, like, let's take this thing… Let's take this thing online, let's create an online company from this, and it took me about one year… It took me one year of absolute lasered in, energy burning, firing all cylinders in one direction to actually create an online business, to launch it, and to successfully earn enough revenue to sell the brick and mortar and to continue building that ship. It took about a year for that to happen.
Kevin: That's not bad. That's not bad at all, and so Instagram has been the most successful platform for you guys? Is that true? [0:15:00.9]
Dr. Mike: It has. It's interesting that it has because there's YouTube, right? And there's Facebook and Instagram and podcasts, and we put our videos on Facebook. We put our videos on YouTube. Just for some reason, Instagram is the one that connects. That's the one when people ask me, they go, what platform? I go, it's not really up to you what platform it is. You've got to just put it out there… And one of my favorite quotes from the founder of LinkedIn, he says if you're not embarrassed by your first product, you've launched too late, and the truth is, just getting started and putting it out there… We put it on all the channels, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and we learned that Instagram was the channel that was our homerun, and we still put on those channels. Sometimes people have a hard time. They go, oh my God, I'm only one person, trying to run a clinic and do that! Well, they you may have to commit to a channel, right off the bat. You might have to commit to one at a time, but there's… If you're being authentic with yourself, there's a message, whether… Some people are better writers… [0:16:01.5]
Kevin: Yes.
Dr. Mike: Maybe a blog, right?
Kevin: That's what I was going to say, is like video is obviously your medium that you totally hit a home run with. For other's it might be writing. For me, I've got my private practice still, and I do a lot with that, and it's a pretty well-developed practice, but then if I look at what I did to build the Modern Chiropractic Marketing Group, it was a podcast and it was a Facebook Group. No video. I didn't do any… I've done some video, definitely done video, but it is not really the medium I use a lot. It's more of audio and then writing, writing in the Facebook Group and keeping tabs on that, and then I send out a weekly email, which is writing, and so my medium has been voice and written, whereas yours has been video, and then you've leveraged the technology of Instagram where a lot of chiropractors keep on thinking, oh, let's go chase Instagram or let's chase Facebook, but they're not actually creating content that's worth any value…
Dr. Mike: Yeah.
Kevin: … and that's a big mistake that we're seeing. [0:17:01.2]
Dr. Mike: Yeah, and I can definitely touch on some points about what I've learned and about how we make our content.
Kevin: Yup, I'd love to.
Dr. Mike: We can talk about now?
Kevin: Yeah, let's do it!
Dr. Mike: What I see chiropractors doing, many of them, is showing the success of their clinic. It's Joanne's birthday today, say happy birthday to our office manager. No one gives a shit. People don't care. People are self-interested. People care about themselves first and foremost, and most people that don't find success through video from what I've seen, they don't understand that. They'll make a video about, hey, look! I hosted a seminar this weekend. Look at all the people in this picture. Once again, that adds no value in people's lives. That's the chiropractor trying to show the world how successful they are rather than to help the person improve, and so I always say screw Joanne… Joanne is great. Have her office birthday party in the office. Don't post it on Instagram. [0:18:02.9]
We don't… I don't post anything personal on our MoveU page. It's literally every video that we make, there's a constant. We go, what is the message we want people to learn? We assume that we have millions of people watching from all the countries, nobody has any equipment. They're driving in their car, their sitting there. No one has any equipment whatsoever, so I'm not going to show like traction with some sort of Pettibon band. I'm not going to do it. No one has it! [laughter]
Kevin: [laughter]
Dr. Mike: And it doesn’t have it, and we also made a choice as well to make videos for the everyday person who knows nothing, and there's a difference. A lot of chiropractors are going to do technique… Understand the only people that care about technique are the other chiropractors.
Kevin: Um hmm.
Dr. Mike: So we don't teach techniques. We teach body movements, exercises, travel tips for the everyday person, and we make it as simple as possible, and it requires un-brainwashing you, chiropractors, because you're brainwashed to speak with your ridiculous words no one cares about. They don't care! [0:19:09.2]
They want to be talked to like it's a fifth grader. Hey, look, when you're sitting in a car, put your hands… Find your pelvic position… If you have back pain, arch your back, tuck it, find the middle, now there's balance in your back. These are everyday words that everybody can understand. When we create a video, there is a central purpose of it, and we want to… I always think about, who this video is for. We want to catch their attention instantly. You only have 7 seconds – that's the number we found – 7 seconds or less now to catch someone's attention. Because if we think about Instagram, you would… Your finger is scrolling down. It's scrolling, it's scrolling, it's scrolling, and doctors out there, you're not as special as you think. A picture of your face going, Hi! I'm Dr. John! No one gives a shit! They keep scrolling. They do. [0:20:00.6]
You've got to remove yourself from this thing. You have to. And you've got to go, how can I catch their attention, as people are… Cause, what Einstein… It's hard as like stopping something in motion, something stays in motion, and a finger is no different. So you're scrolling a finger… I mean, whatever it is. Andrew wearing a wig with his stomach sticking out, with me jumping in the camera face. I am doing everything I can to stop people in their tracks. I only have 2 or 3 seconds to so it. If I wait too long, it's over. They keep scrolling. We know. We know the numbers. I think we have 700 million impressions last year on our videos and like so we start to see some data.
Kevin: Yeah.
Dr. Mike: So every video we do, we've got to grab their attention in the first 3, 4 seconds. Gotta catch it, and then you got to get to the point. Most people start videos like, hey, I'm Dr. John! Today, we’re going to be talking… Who gives a shit? Get into the movement, get into something interesting instantly, and then you can describe what's going on. You've got to get into though. [0:21:01.6]
It involves removing oneself and knowing that social media works, it's very fast. It's very fast paced. It's not in person. People don't care about you, other than your mom and your dad watching the videos, but I don't think they're your audience because those are the hardest people to work on.
Kevin: [laughter] Real quick question – you obviously have a lot of energy, and you've got the charisma, and you're good on video. I've seen plenty of your videos. Talk to the doc a little bit that's not necessarily inclined to be on video. Should they double up their energy? What are some the tactics that a chiropractor could do for that?
Dr. Mike: Good question. Video specifically. I mean, cause that is true, that's our medium, it's video. I do quotes of myself, I do terrible… I make what I think are good quotes, no one cares, so they're not great, I guess… [laughter]
Kevin: [laughter]
Dr. Mike: What I learned is that when I was a practicing chiro, and I'm actually getting my license. I let my license lapse for three years, so I'm getting it back. I actually just took part 2 and part 3 boards over again, and I passed them the first time. I studied for 8 hours. I couldn't believe I passed! They go, you've got two options: You can either re-take all of your continuing educations you missed, which is like 70 hours… I'm like, okay, option B is? [laughter] [0:22:16.5]
Kevin: [laughter]
Dr. Mike: Or you can re-take part two and three boards, called SPEC exam, $1500. I'm like, well, shit, I'm doing that! [laughter]
Kevin: Yeah! [laughter]
Dr. Mike: I am re-taking those again. I forgot what the point is because I am going to start seeing people again.
Kevin: Okay.
Dr. Mike: But what I learned about myself was that when I was in practice… And I didn't learn this about myself until I started turning to a camera, is that when I was in practice, I was so concerned about losing patients, about preserving relationships with doctors that were referring me people. I didn't want to say anything that might stop that referral…
Kevin: Um hmm.
Dr. Mike: And also I had a concern about how my peers looked at me. And all of those led to me speaking through a filter. I spoke through a filter! [0:23:04.4]
Kevin: Um hmm.
Dr. Mike: And I became robotic even though I wasn't robotic to my friends, and I, looking back at myself, I was speaking not from that place, that authentic place, like that truth within. There is a truth within me, and it didn't come out until I had a camera in front of me, and I stopped caring about those people particular, and start, and I go, there's a million people… There's people out there, what do they need? What does the everyday person need? The skills I developed in body and I would like to overcome, they need those. It's a superpower, and when I started speaking to the person, to the everyday person, from the heart, my passion came out then. That's when we had liftoff. That's when traction occurred, and it didn't occur in the clinic. [0:24:03.3]
Like, oh, you know, three times a week, for four weeks… In speaking these terms that I didn't necessarily believe. Or the insurance was dictating paying me… Oh, I get reimbursed for this belt, here and there. These things all got in the way of that true voice. I would tell every doctor out there, it's like what do you really want to say? Like, screw it all! Really! Burn the ships! What do you really want to say? What do people… Who do you want help? How do you want to help them? What do they need to know? And speak from that, and that helped us take off. And also with that, came me owning my kind of goofiness, which is… There's a brainwashing, I think, that occurs in chiro school, where we're… Where we're expected to speak a way, to be a way, to look a certain way, and that doesn’t fit the mold of… It didn't fit the mold of myself. I'm, I'm… I swear… I’m a little bit aggressive. I'm goofy with my humor…[ 0:25:05.7]
Kevin: Um hmm.
Dr. Mike: I'm very passionate, and so each person, it's like know thyself. It's like, what lights and spark you do, and when you say it… When you say it from that place, it's gonna come out real, and people know when it's coming out authentic. So, it's un-brainwashing yourself, it's part of it.
Kevin: It's interesting. There's a guy, Joe Pulizzi, who founded the Content Marketing Institute, and he wrote a book called Epic Content Marketing, and there's like 6 key aspects to that, and one of the ones is be human, and I think you have to be human and part of that is being authentic and being yourself on video. I see some chiropractors, like if you see them talking to patients or you see them talking to their friends, they're pretty good, pretty good energy, good charisma, and they get on video, and all of a sudden, it's gone, and so you definitely need to be authentic on the video.
Dr. Mike: You know, I looked at that… When I started, I always looked at the camera lens, like it was a… [0:26:04.0]
The person I put behind the camera lens, the camera lens, the recording eyeball, to me was… It was a 23-year-old male, a little bit feminine, and he wants help. He doesn't know what to do. He's standing there going, I don't know what to do. Like his knee is screwed up, his back is screwed up, he's like… He's like, I don't know what to do, and I always spoke to that person, that, like, it was only me and him in the room, and that person is just begging for help. Like, just tell me what to do. Tell me what to do, tell me how to think, tell me. And so when I spoke to that person, I thought that would connect with the most, because, you know, our audience is mostly male, and then we have female, so I kind of wanted to keep it open for both, but without affecting my natural tone. You don't want to start speaking to… Doc, even up till recently, I find myself… You know, we get millions of comments. You start reading them…
Kevin: Oh, yeah… [laughter] [0:27:06.0]
Dr. Mike: Ooh, yeah, I don't want to say this… The next thing you're like, what the fuck? I'm not speaking to anybody! I'm talking through filters again! And I get frustrated. I'm like, no! That's like Conan O'Brien. He doesn't read any of his comments. None. Zero. And I get that. Even Howard Stern…
Kevin: Yes.
Dr. Mike: He goes… Howard is like, I'll read a thousand comments, and I look for that bad one, and I remember that one. I'm like, I get that.
Kevin: Oh, for sure. It's even like, as a chiropractor, you'll have 30 people come in, in a day, and 28 of them are happy and they do great, and two are worse, and you focus on the those two.
Dr. Mike: Right.
Kevin: Not the 28 you helped.
Dr. Mike: Right! I think maybe it's an expectation of excellence. That's what I think it is.
Kevin: Which is good, right?
Dr. Mike: Yeah.
Kevin: But, yeah, you've got to kind of shelter yourself from all the negativity, for sure. I wanted to ask another question because I know Instagram is kind of the main platform, so do you shoot the video under a minute, and then put that same video on Facebook and YouTube? Or do you shoot multiple videos at different lengths for the different platforms? [0:28:05.1]
Dr. Mike: Good question. Yeah, Instagram has been our main platform, so we shoot most… We shoot 80% of our videos for Instagram, and then we push them onto other platforms. Now, I do believe that our other platforms, the growth is severely limited because they know it's for Instagram.
Kevin: Yup.
Dr. Mike: I do believe that. We do shoot some YouTube videos, not many, but most is Instagram, and most of it is then re-distributed to other channels. We offload Vimeo… Now those get, from Vimeo, those get put into some of our new technology we're creating, and then YouTube, and then Facebook, and I don't even know what else at this point...
Kevin: Well you bring up a good point. There is… What chiropractors don't realize is like I use Vimeo a lot too for our academy. We have a Chiropractic Success Academy, and we use Vimeo. We can block it. No one else can see it. You can upload into the academy. It's great. So we use that, and obviously YouTube for more things we're trying to get distributed, and so, yeah, I use different strategies with that as well. [0:29:07.9]
Dr. Mike: Sure, sure… And there's tech, there's tools out there… We haven’t found it though. We still, as a team, individually post. We don't use some tool. There are tools out there that help you distribute it and time it, but because there are igtb's, sometimes we post 2-part videos. These tools are out there. We haven't found one that actually is able to solve our problems. We manually post it all. All this stuff.
Kevin: Are you doing a lot of that? Or do you have some help?
Dr. Mike: I do none of it.
Kevin: Yeah, but…
Dr. Mike: [laughter] I'm learning. I've learned that… I'm definitely owning that I'm the… I'm messy with like my schedule, I'm usually late, and I'm… But I love, and I cannot… Like, a daily routine? I don't have that. I create my whole routine the night before, so the next different every day, and where Andrew, he's a machine… He's like, he'll repeat something to death…[0:30:06.4]
Kevin: [laughter]
Dr. Mike: Everyday! Like, he'll… Robot! So, I needed him. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him.
Kevin: That's good, you guys work together well, and it's very helpful. I want to touch on a target topic because a lot of chiropractors that are listening to this, might say to themselves, oh, yeah, I'm not really looking to have an online academy or platform to monetize, what should I do? Obviously, you guys are probably targeting nationally in your metrics and probably even sometimes…
Dr. Mike: Globally.
Kevin: … globally, I was gonna say, and so you guys have a huge target that you're going for, whereas, you know, and that's what it takes to get like 1.2 million followers, I think you have on Instagram, and do that. You guys are really doing something special, but I think chiropractors can do something special in their community. If all they have is brick and mortar, and so now we're just talking about numbers within – I'm in Boca Raton, Florida – so I'm looking just around that, and I can focus around that with targeting. Can you speak to that a little bit, whereas, don't have this expectation that you're going to have a million followers on Instagram. It can be still successful for you in your private practice. [0:31:18.0]
Dr. Mike: Well, this I can't speak with directly because I've always made content for everybody, you know? I've ignored… I found that our audience to get to our size, I actually have to ignore the local people because when you focus locally, hey, we're having an event this Monday at the office…
Kevin: Yeah.
Dr. Mike: … 99% people don't give a shit. You what they do? Unfollow. They just do.
Kevin: But let me ask you… I think I asked it poorly. You mentioned something that was amazing earlier, was you're trying to add value and help that person do this on their own, right?
Dr. Mike: Yeah.
Kevin: I think maybe a chiropractor could do that same strategy, but all they are changing is the targeting to their local area, and then by helping that person help themselves locally, when something bad does happen, there is a higher chance they're going to probably go into their practice to see them because they look at them as an expert. Would you say that's accurate? [0:32:16.2]
Dr. Mike: What I've found in, when I was practicing, and this is in life right now, is that if I have to repeat something more than two or three times, there needs to be a system for that. Because I'm telling my… If I'm telling the patient the same… If I'm telling 20 patients the same thing, I'm wasting my time. Because if I were to get on camera and do it one time… If I know I'm going to do it one time and that's it, I'm all passion with it. I’m going to do a better job doing it the one time, and then I'm going to post that on my channels, and then I have my patients, hey, follow this channel, follow this, there's this video here that I explain this.
Kevin: Um hmm.
Dr. Mike: So if I was in clinic starting over again, I would just start making videos for anything I was saying or repeating to people more than once. [0:33:03.7]
Like, disk herniation. You get… Maybe they come in the office, you repeat the same thing. Look, here's the model, this is the disk herniation. You going to flex, you're going to bulge out back, and cough and sneeze. You repeat it over and over. You might as well make one video on it, upload it to YouTube and send as a new patient document or somehow connect that technology to those videos with your clients so you're not repeating it, and plus it's something they can resource, or reference it, whenever they want.
Kevin: That's great. That's a huge, huge, huge point, and I'm glad you brought that up because it's also… I utilize my patients as my muse, like I have… Basically they give me the creation and the ideas, and so if you're repeating those things, shoot a video about it, and that's your content and creation, and you can leverage it in different ways like you just said. So awesome idea, thank you.
Dr. Mike: And you're saving yourself likely tens of hours every year, maybe hundreds of hours repeating. I have to always… And just like just myself is now the CEO of this company, our team is up to, I think, 26, 27, and that's from… If I'm repeating something, I mean, I'm putting something behind it cause I'm not doing that because I need to be continually focusing my energy on the highest and best years, and repeating something…[ 0:34:21.1]
And I understand the process, like but first we launched a webinar, and that's how we originally enrolled people in the program in our online method, and I repeated that webinar. I did it maybe like 80 times, and there was a point though that I hit where I go, okay, I'm saying the same thing…
Kevin: Yup.
Dr. Mike: … and then it's like let's make one recording for it, automate it, and move on. So there is the learning curve where we're still… I've always known if I'm stuttering, if it's not clear to me… One of Einstein's quote is if you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough, and I always keep that in my mind if I'm trying to explain something, and I'm like, ah, it's kind of like this… I know I'm not there yet. I'm going to continue repeating that with people. I'm not repeating, I'm building and improving the way I'm saying it until it's crisp and sharp, and when it's sharp enough, I go, record, done, next. [0:35:09.2]
Kevin: Nice. Do you guys batch? As far as recordings? Do 1 set of a bunch, and then distribute them? Or do you just record as you go?
Dr. Mike: When we started, we recorded… Back in the early days, we'd record like 5 videos a week or 3, and we'd do them on different days. Maybe we would do one a day… That's how we started… We did one, and then we'd just post it. And then we'd do another one, we'd post it. And then we moved to a system where we would do all of them for the week, so we'd only be one week… We would do them for that week. So Monday would come, we'd do five videos. We did them in series, like it's low back week. Then we realized that not every… We treat each person like they've never seen any of our videos before. That's how we mostly do those. So we realized that creating a series for the week didn't work because a lot of people didn't watch the first one, and then they wouldn't get the second one. Then we started creating videos about a week in advance. [0:36:04.6]
We did that for like two or three years. The week before, we'd make five videos; that would be for next week. And we did that for, for… So we'd sit down for maybe an hour… And what we did initially, we didn't have… There are no editors. Now, we have… I have amazing videographers and editors. We didn't have that. We really didn't know how to do it, so we were… Everything would be recorded. If we screwed up anywhere in the minute, start over! [laughter]
Kevin: Um hmm.
Dr. Mike: We would never piece it together. All we would do is at the end, we would trim the beginning and trim the end and post it. That's all we would do. So we had… It forced us to nail the video… I might go seven takes without hitting it. Most of the time, I'll get it in about one or two takes, but sometimes it's up to six or seven, but just delete it until it's crisp and then go. So now we do batches, so now we go… What we found though was when we record videos like… Then we decided, let's record all the videos for the month…
Kevin: Yup.
Dr. Mike: But what we found was our views dropped significantly because we lost energy in that process. [0:37:01.6]
Kevin: Oh, yeah.
Dr. Mike: I put so much in it… I put so much energy and juice into videos…
Kevin: Um hmm.
Dr. Mike: … that after first five videos, maybe… We'd record like 20 or 30 or 40 videos, maybe somewhere in the middle, we'd lose it, and the video sucked.
Kevin: Yeah.
Dr. Mike: So then we went back to recording for the next week. Now we record about every week or every 2 weeks, and we've got a hopper though that we filled up over time, like reserves. Now I go to… I can do a 10-day silent meditation retreat, and I know we've got weeks and weeks, like I'm sitting there teaching you guys; meanwhile, I'm sitting there Zen as fuck somewhere, learning about myself, so I can come back even stronger!
Kevin: [laughter] That's great point, man! Because we've been developing a lot of content for our practice over the last 6 years, and I just went on a two-week vacation in Europe, and everything was planned out and scheduled, and there was content being distributed. I just took it from old stuff or we sent out a weekly email to our patient's educational base, and sometimes I'll go back to 2015 and steal and email and re-send it, you know? And once you start creating content consistently, you've got that hopper, and then it makes it a whole lot easier, and you get that momentum going. [0:38:03.6]
Dr. Mike: That momentum, right? Like you said about the muse. I’m actually getting my license. I want to see people about half a day a week coming up soon, just so can also… And I've lost some touch with what people, what patients are struggling with. I've lost it because I haven't had a license. We're a video content company. I talk to a camera. We have seminars we teach sometimes, and I've got a team that I'm leading, and so getting back to those grassroots, I was… I was just burned out. I thought I hated it and was done. I was just burned out. After 10,000 patients or so, I just needed a break. I took like three years off, so I'm getting back to it.
Kevin: Perfect. That's exciting. That's definitely exciting, and it sounds that's probably one of the things that's exciting you the most, but I don't want to put words in your mouth, so what right now, present day, what's got you really motivated and excited for the future?
Dr. Mike: I'm very excited. Our goal, one of our main goals that gets me super excited is 1 million active members, one million active members in our programs, in our methods, in our technology, and so we got some super exciting things, stuff I cannot wait to launch, like we've been developing our App for 8 months…[0:39:13.7]
Kevin: Nice.
Dr. Mike: Beta launch is coming up so excited…
Kevin: Nice.
Dr. Mike: … and I'm also incredibly excited to start… We've been re-packaging our online MoveU method in our online community, re-packaging it so we can find more people that need it, the people that need us, the people that benefit most. There's a sweet spot in the back, and this is what I believe at this point, is that it's… There's products… Like if you look right now, at whatever it is, like CBD oil.
Kevin: Um hmm.
Dr. Mike: Well… I don't know much about it, but I did 5000 mg in a study once, and I did that on YouTube.
Kevin: [laughter]
Dr. Mike: I saw it… I guess I was sleepy because there's serotonin in it, but the point is, I'm like, I'd roll my eyes at that because it's probably good for one thing, and then they claim it's good for everything, and then it gets diluted about the one thing it was good for, it gets diluted because these claims are everything, and our method is for people that have tried the healthcare system and failed at it, for people who are frustrated with their body pain…[ 0:40:17.2]
Those people, when they enroll, they rocket launch and find success like they've never imagined. We had a choice to make, and it was do we start making products, programs for everybody? And I said, no. What we do, is we find the people that need us the most, and I got so excited about that cause those people exist. Health insurance knows where they are…
Kevin: Um hmm.
Dr. Mike: … because they're paying the bills. Big corporations know where those people are. They're struggling, they're limited with pain. They know where those are. So we have been re-packaging what we've done and getting ready to take that into corporate, take that into health care, and I'm so pumped up about that! The problem is it takes forever, in my opinion.
Kevin: There is a lot of red tape with the corporate stuff. [laughter] [0:41:00.0]
Dr. Mike: Everyone here in this business thinks that we’re moving at lightning speed. I'm like, we're going to slow! [laughter]
Kevin: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Mike: I'm so pumped up! I'm so excited about that!
Kevin: Out of the one million members, who's your target member? Like what does that person look like? Are they a fitness trainer? Are they a chiropractor? Are they a regular Joe? What's the target?
Dr. Mike: For our current product?
Kevin: Yeah.
Dr. Mike: For our current product, The MoveU Method, which is an online… It's an online program with a community, and inside the community we have a full-time team of expert coaches helping guide people to make sure that they're moving correctly and progressing. It's about 200 videos, a series of about 200 progressive exercise training videos that teach people how to properly move their body and how to piece that all together to gain full body awareness, and they also… They learn to be the expert of their bodies, and… That process, it takes people about one year to move through that and to achieve the level of awareness that we know they're capable of. That person is struggling with body pain. [0:42:00.4]
Kevin: Yup.
Dr. Mike: They have back pain – most common. They have back pain, maybe it's a disk, maybe it's a stenosis, or a spondy. They have something… They've been to healthcare, they've had shots, they've had maybe surgery, they've been to chiro, they’ve been to PT, they tried massage, they're frustrated, they're not getting the results. That's the primary person that we speak to with our current product. We speak to them.
Kevin: Yup.
Dr. Mike: And it gets a little scary… Oh, my goodness, how many of them are out there? But if we just open up our message a little bit? We've been doing that. We opened up our message so much, that we're like, we forgot to connect with those people. So now we're reconnecting with those people again and taking that product to those people, and, on the side, we're creating our technology that's going to help all the videos we've ever done. It's going to help people search for those videos much easier, help people find… Just people that want something quick easy, we're building something for them too, but that is… That's our… That's the person who, for our, the MoveU Method, that's who does best. It's the everyday person. Subsequently, you have coaches, you got trainers, you got chiros, PTs that want to learn the system that we've created as well. So, if they sign up for it, all is well. [0:43:12.0]
Kevin: Let me ask you a question. Do you think a chiropractor could utilize your platform and recommend their patients sign up for that to act as kind of a support system for their active care with them?
Dr. Mike: It has to be the right doctor. It has to be the doctor… The doctor has to want the best for the patient. They… The doctor who we work with, and we actually are launching this pilot right now with one of my co-graduates, Dr. Justin Pierce of Valley Spinal Care in Arizona. The guy, he's amazing, he's done a great job. I mean, he's built himself up two, three clinics. I think they crush, but we work with him because he wants what's best for the clients. He wants them to improve. He wants them to fix their body, and he wants to be known as the guy that has a solution for people. And so that doctor specifically, we want to work with that doctor. We want to partner with that doctor. We want to certify that clinic as a MoveU Clinic as well. [0:44:12.0]
Kevin: Yeah.
Dr. Mike: And we want to get out… We want to be able to communicate back and forth with the doctor because currently my challenge is this: I can't recommend people go see a chiro. Why? Because then they'll go in to a chiro. I don't know what the chiro is going to say. Some three times a week, four times, this and this… Then what's the doctor going to do? Ice them, heat him, stim them, try to keep them forever? I can't trust. I need to… There needs to be a… I need to have trust at that doctor and that clinic is looking out, and that's the doctor that we are looking to work with. And so we're just running this pilot right now, on the backend…
Kevin: Uh huh.
Dr. Mike: …. So it's going to be a 6-month pilot with this clinic. We're interested in more clinics as well, to see if that will work, and, yeah, we're also constructing a business model that is meant to benefit both the doctor, the patient, and MoveU. That is 100% something that we are testing. Say Walmart tested pharmacies, they tested Sam's Club… That took off. [0:45:01.8]
We're testing that. Is it going to work? We're not sure exactly. We're not sure, but it is something that we're interested in testing, and it is definitely going to be the right doctor.
Kevin: That sounds great! I'll have to touch base with you on that… And that's the audience that we have, as far as chiropractors. What you described, that's the type of chiropractors that are usually listening to this podcast.
Dr. Mike: That's fantastic, and I… To be honest with you, Doc, I don't believe that's the majority. From my experience…
Kevin: Oh, no, not even close… Yeah… It's unfortunate, yeah. That's why I was telling you off air, I was at the Forward Thinking Event in St. Louis and Gray Cook was the key note. Last year's event, Greg Rose was the key note. As you can see, that's the type of chiropractor that's attending that event. That's.. We wish it was more. Right?
Dr. Mike: We wish it was more, and you know, now that I left the profession, and I feel like I see things from an aerial view. I mean, I'm not so biased where, many chiropractors are like, medical doctors this and they don't understand. Like, I understand why most of healthcare doesn't want to work with chiros…[0:46:07.8]
Kevin: Yeah.
Dr. Mike: It's because they're offering them this just Band-Aid solution, just this three times a week forever, this maintenance thing forever that is not truly helping people fix their problem. Is it better than surgery? You can say that, but god dammit, you can do a better job than that.
Kevin: Yeah.
Dr. Mike: So I'm standing for that. I would like our profession to come together again and come together and be more unified with medical. I think it would more unified with MoveU.
Kevin: Yup.
Dr. Mike: I just lost some belief… I just see that being the minority. I'm like, why am I in this profession that I only see the minority of people doing that, and the majority is doing the same shit.
Kevin: Yup, yup, we're trying to change that. We're trying to change that.
Dr. Mike: Hopefully I'm helping.
Kevin: You're helping a ton. I mean, you guys got a big reach, and that really does help, and so I appreciate that. I don't want to take up too much more of your time. This has just been amazing information. Other than the obvious, as far as Instagram, how else can our audience potentially find you and reach out to you, regarding some of the stuff that we talked about? [0:47:09.6]
Dr. Mike: That's great! Anything business related, email Katie@moveu.com. She is our business developer, and she can help if you're interested in partnering with MoveU on this upcoming venture, becoming a MoveU certified clinic, and speaking about any other business opportunities. That's the person to email for that. She is our head of… You don't want to email me. I'll lose the email…
Kevin: Yeah, that's how that works! [laughter] I just want to commend you too because what you've done is, without an audience, you got consistent with content, and then you've monetized it, and you've built a real business around creating content, and that's just inspiring for a lot of people.
Dr. Mike: Ah, thanks, Doc! And you know what… And the way I look at it is, like, wow, people… Like there was a great MasterClass... There's Steve Martin, he teaches standup comedy…[0:48:01.0]
Kevin: Um hmm.
Dr. Mike: …. And he goes, well you could be a comedian… Back in the 1970s, Steve Martin was the King of the Kings…
Kevin: Oh, yeah.
Dr. Mike: He filled up stadiums, and Steve would put on masks, wigs, juggle, and play instruments, and he said in his online course at MasterClass, he was like, look, you can just stand up there and talk, but you'll probably get more people if you use your arms, you'll probably get more people more watching you if you put on something, and so the point is, is that for all you doctors out there, talking to people with a model… Just education, in and of itself, is boring as shit. I'm going to say it again: Education is so boring, the only people that care about education are the students that want to become doctors like you, which is so few, just one out of a million, if you really do a number. The rest of the world… If you want the message, if you truly want to make an impact, you truly want to help people, you have to connect it somehow, whether it's through emotion, whether it's through entertainment. We use entertainment…
Kevin: Um hmm.
Dr. Mike: … so we just brought on an animator. [0:49:01.3]
He draws cartoons and graphics, and now we're going to bring on a computer-generated 3D bio-mechanist, and we have an anatomy artist that paints, and, myself, I'm trying to be crazy up there, spin in circles. Andrew is sticking out his stomach. The point is, is all of these are… Is to engage people… Is to engage people requires holding their attention, and we use our tools that we have to hold their attention. We're saying the same message. We're usually saying… The message is the same. It's the delivery and it’s a way to hold their attention that I believe has really helped us grow to where we are today. And so whatever… You have to… Most doctors are just… They're educating on whatever with their words, they're showing an MRI, or blah, blah, blah. It's boring! Get them excited! Get them pumped up! Get people excited to live, and it's like where's… I don’t know where their passion… I don't know where your passions come from, docs out there. I don't know where it is, but if you're not letting it go, if you're not letting it slide, you've got to keep digging because you've got to know yourselves. [0:50:03.2]
Kevin: We'll end it on that! That was just amazing. I really appreciate your time, and I know you and I will be talking in the near future.
Dr. Mike: Yeah! You're in Orlando, Doc?
Kevin: I'm down in… I'm not far. I'm about two hours away, so if you're ever there, let me know.
Dr. Mike: Sweet! All right, hey, docs out there, thanks for tuning in. Hope you loved it. You can go to moveu.com, check that out. We've the MoveU Unfiltered podcast, and you can check out that's more motivation and inspiration on mindset, MoveU on Instagram, MoveU on Facebook, MoveU on YouTube, and I think that covers all the ways to stay connected with us. Hopefully it helped you guys, and help everybody fix their shit, will ya?
Thanks for tuning in today. Please be sure to check our redesigned website at www.ModernChiropracticMarketing.com. Stay up-to-date with our blog, where content is regularly added by Kevin and guest contributors. You can also access our library of podcast episodes there. Go to www.ModernChiropracticMarketing.com and subscribe to the podcast today.
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